St. John's get lone win in Maui, 100-93 over Chaminade
LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) Freshman Federico Mussini scored a season-high 24 points and junior forward Christian Jones had career highs of 17 points and 11 rebounds to help St. John's beat Chaminade 100-93 on Wednesday in the seventh-place game of the Maui Jim Maui Invitational.
The Red Storm (4-2) had struggled with their shooting all season but not against the Division II host school. Entering the game shooting 39 percent from the field and 34 percent on 3s, the Red Storm blew those numbers away: 59.3 percent from the field (35 of 59) and 52.6 percent on 3s (10 of 19).
Durand Johnson had 18 points for St. John's, which lost to No. 19 Vanderbilt and No. 13 Indiana in the tournament, while Amar Alibegovic had 17, Rom Mvouika 12 and Yankuba Sima 10. Six players accounted for all but two of the 100 points.
Kiran Shastri had 19 points for the Silverswords (0-5). Kevin Hu added 17 and Sam Daly and James Harper had 15 each.
St. John's had a first half most teams can only dream about. The Red Storm led 59-42 after shooting 71.0 percent from the field (22 of 31) and 75 percent from 3-point range (9 of 12).
They cooled off in the second half but Chaminade never got closer than five points and that was in final seconds of an up-and-down 20 minutes that featured little defense.
TIP-INS:
St. John's: The win was No. 1,799 for St. John's. They will be the eighth Division I program to reach 1,800. ... Mussini has been the leading or co-leading scorer in all St. John's games this season. ... The Red Storm found out Wednesday that freshman forward Kassoum Yakwe has been cleared to play by the NCAA. He will be available for the Fordham game next Wednesday.
Chaminade: This was the Silverswords' first game against a Big East opponent since they faced Georgetown in 2011, an 88-61 loss. ... Of Chaminade's seven wins in the tournament three have come in the seventh-place game: Stanford in 1992, Princeton in 2007, and Oklahoma in 2010. The Silverswords record in the tournament is 7-87.
UP NEXT:
St. John's: at Fordham on Dec. 2.
Chaminade: hosts Cal State San Marcos on Saturday.
